1943: Abraham Maslow (1908 to 1970)
publishes A Theory of Motivation, establishing the hierarchy of needs.
1950: Erik Erikson (1902 to 1994)
expands on Freud’s theory to include social aspects of personality development with the publication of
Childhood and Society. A portrait of Erik Erikson accompanies the text.
1951: John Bowlby (1907 to 1990)
publishes Maternal Care and Mental Health, one of his first works on the importance of parent–child
attachment. A photo accompanying the text shows a couple cooing their baby.
1953: Publication of the first
papers describing D N A, our genetic blueprint. An illustration of a D N A strand accompanies a text.
1953: B.
F. Skinner (1904 to 1990) conducts experiments on rats and establishes operant conditioning. A photo of rats
accompanies the text.
1955: Emmy Werner (birth 1929) begins her Kauai study, which focuses on the power of
resilience.
1956: K. Warner Schaie’s (birth 1928) Seattle Longitudinal Study of Adult Intelligence
begins. A photo accompanying the text shows a child dressed in tribal attire posing and sticking out his tongue at
the camera at a beach.
1957: Harry Harlow (1905 to 1981) publishes Love in Infant Monkeys, describing his
research on attachment in rhesus monkeys. A photo accompanying the text shows a monkey hugging a robot.
1961:
The morning sickness drug thalidomide is banned after children are born with serious birth defects, calling
attention to the problem of teratogens during pregnancy.
1961: Alfred Bandura (birth 1925) conducts the Bobo
Doll experiments, leading to the development of social learning theory.
1965: Head Start, an early childhood
education program, launched in the United States.
1965: Mary Ainsworth (1913 to 1999) starts using the
‘Strange Situation’ to measure attachment. A portrait of Mary Ainsworth accompanies the text.
1966: Diana Baumrind (birth 1928) publishes her first work on parenting styles.
1972: Beginning of the
Dunedin, New Zealand, study—one of the first longitudinal studies to include genetic markers. A genetic marker
map accompanies the text.
1979: Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917 to 2005) publishes his work on ecological systems
theory.
1986: John Gottman (birth 1942) founded the ‘Love Lab’ at the University of Washington to
study what makes relationships work.
1987: Carolyn Rovee–Collier (1942 to 2014) shows that even young
infants can remember in her classic mobile experiments.
1990 to Present: New brain imaging technology allows
pinpointing of brain areas involved in everything from executive function to Alzheimer’s disease. A photo of a
neuroimaging machine accompanies the text.
1990: Barbara Rogoff (birth 1950) publishes Apprenticeship in
Thinking, making developmentalists more aware of the significance of culture and context. Rogoff provided new
insights and appreciation of child–rearing in Latin America.
1993: Howard Gardner (birth 1943) publishes
Multiple Intelligences, a major new understanding of the diversity of human intellectual abilities. Gardner has
since revised and expanded his ideas in many ways. A photo of a girl of Asian-origin clutching a book to her chest
accompanies the text.
1994: Steven Pinker (birth 1954) publishes The Language Instinct, focusing attention on
the interaction between neuroscience and behavior, helping developmentalists understand the need for physiological
understanding as part of human growth. These themes continue in How the Mind Works (1997).
1996: Giacomo
Rizzolatti publishes his discovery of mirror neurons.
2000: Jeffrey Arnett conceptualizes emerging adulthood.
2003: Mapping of the human genome is completed.
2013: D S M- 5, which emphasizes the role of context in
understanding mental health problems, is published.
2013: U. S. President Barack Obama announces his
administration’s Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, which helps
researchers seek new ways to treat, cure, and prevent brain disorders. A photo accompanying the text shows Barack
Obama delivering a speech at a BRAIN Initiative forum.
2014 to 2020 Onward. Many more discoveries are
chronicled in this book, as researchers continue to test and explore.